Customers of businesses, such as financial institutions or the like, that have many customer service outlets, otherwise referred to as centers, branches or the like, have come to expect that the various service outlets will have the immediate capability to address many of their particular special needs or services without the need of a physical visit to any of the service outlets. Likewise, businesses such as financial institutions have begun to streamline their operations for the sake of efficiency as they have come to realize that round-the-clock location of agents at each service outlet/center is inefficient. For example, in the financial institution setting, if each banking center employs at least one full-time mortgage/loan agent, a full-time small business agent and/or a full-time personal financial advisor/agent, the agent may only be called upon in regards to their specialty in the event a customer visits the banking center requiring assistance in the area of specialty.
Certain businesses, such as financial institutions and the like, have addressed the problem associated with staffing service outlets with full-time agents by utilizing video conferencing systems. Specifically, such video conferencing systems may employ two-way video conferencing communication between a customer, who is located at the service outlet/banking center, home, or the like, and an agent, who is located remotely from the location of the user such as a service outlet/banking center. Both customer and agent receive audio and video feeds of the other participant. Alternatively, a one-way video conferencing system provides the customer a video and audio feed of a remote agent, while the remote agent is limited to receiving an audio feed from the customer. Such video conferencing systems are set-up in private settings within the business to provide the customer assurance that the information exchanged during the communication session is held in private. In this regard, any location equipped with video conferencing communication can provide customers on-demand access to agents having different areas of specialty/expertise without requiring the full-time physical presence of the agent at the business outlet/center or the presence of the customer within the business outlet/center.
In certain instances, it becomes apparent that a customer that is participating in a video conferencing communication session or any other media-based communication desires a means to fluidly navigate through the video conferencing session without being distracted from the conference itself. Currently, in the video conferencing environment the user is limited to simple interactions such as an audio/video feed between themselves and the agent. If the user needs to access other screens or documentation they are tasked with manually accomplishing these acts. The current method does not optimize the full potential of video conference communication sessions.
Therefore, a need exists to develop systems, apparatus, methods, computer program products and the like that provide the user with an streamlined and effortless way to interact with the agent during video conference sessions and navigate through various user interfaces, documentation, and presented information. The desired aspects should alleviate problems related to the burdensome navigation through information presented in video conference sessions. In addition, the desired systems, apparatus, methods, computer program products and the like should allow for customer information, private or otherwise, to be shared amongst all participants of the session so as to eliminate the need of the agent to present information to at a later time, such as when the conference has ended.